Sharon Cash

Hi, this is Bernie Dake. Welcome to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Hi, this is Bernie. Welcome to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Cheryl Gillum, and I'm with my co-host. Bernie Dake. It's a privilege to be back with you, Cheryl. It's good to see you, Bernie.

You know, what's exciting about this is we're doing like a highlight reel series. So we're looking back at different interviews that have taken place over the past several years, and today's interview is from March of 2019. Sharon Cash is a counselor who works with the Salvation Army in Memphis, Tennessee, and she joined us to share a lesson she learned from one of her first cases as a counselor. The story that Sharon shares is a heartbreaking story about the power of unforgiveness. In this interview, she referred to unforgiveness as a crime scene that we keep going back to only to find that our fingerprints are the only ones there.

And honestly, I don't remember the context of that statement, but I read something today that said the hardest person to lead or manage is the one looking back at you in the mirror. Unforgiveness is something that we hold over ourselves sometimes. We ask God to forgive us, and He can cast it away as far as the East is from the West. He's not capable of remembering the sin. But we hold onto things that really keep us from experiencing the true joy that comes with the freedom of forgiveness in Jesus Christ. It's something that truly does hold us captive and causes much tragedy in our own lives if we don't release it. So there is power in forgiveness, but there's power in unforgiveness as well. And that's what Sharon shares. Yeah, in a negative way.

In a negative way, yes. Well, listen, we would love to hear from you. If there's something that you're hearing or something that you wish you could have someone pray with you or for you, please let us know. And you can reach out to us by sending us an email at radio.uss.salvationarmy.org or call 1-800-229-9965. We would love to hear from you, and we will lift you up in prayer.

God bless you. We'll see you next week on Words of Life. I am Sharon Cash. I am the program director in Memphis, Tennessee, for the Salvation Army Produce Center of Hope. It is an environment that supports women with children and addresses issues that has caused them to be homeless, that is related to domestic violence, mental health issues, drug addiction, and life in general that has caused them to be in this situation that they seek us out. I have been in counseling, particularly working with women, for 21 years. I've been with the Salvation Army for 17 of those 21 years, and I am a recovering person of 26 years.

I work particularly with women of trauma, so I am trained in trauma-informed care and somatic therapy as well as experiential therapy. Bobby was my very first client. I remember the day that I started, and Bobby was in what we call the great room, and she was watching Walker, Texas Ranger, and she had totally dominated the room. She had pretty much told everybody else in the room that they couldn't watch anything else because that was her program between 4 o'clock and 5 o'clock, and everybody agreed with it.

Nobody challenged her. I remember going in and saying, I thought the schedule said 4 o'clock and that this would be a time for the children to be watching cartoons. So that was the beginning of our relationship because I challenged her and asked her to come out of the great room and to be where she's scheduled to be. So that started us having a level of communication that undoubtedly no one else had had with Bobby, but that began our relationship at that time, her having to come into my office and sit down and talk with me about what was going on with her at that time in her life. After our initial individual session, one of the things that I was led to do to earn the right to hear Bobby's story, and after we began to interact on a daily basis, Bobby began to share with me just how painful her journey had been. Bobby was the daughter of a recovering person that had had a horrific life herself, her mom. Bobby was a street prostitute for many years, even though she was so amazingly intelligent.

She, as a result of her cocaine addiction, resulted to whatever was necessary to stay high, and she had a reputation in the community of being Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. When I met her, this was her fourth attempt at getting sober, and she had her son with her, and he was a young male that had been exposed to just how outrageous her behavior would become. So one of the things that happened along the way was learning that Bobby had a daughter that had been murdered as a result of Bobby's lifestyle. She began to mimic her mom's behavior, and after an opportunity to seek treatment, they had established an environment that was healthy. They had an apartment.

Her daughter and her son had come to live with her. Bobby had quit using drugs and alcohol at that time, but her lifestyle still needed the support of what she did to get money. There was a gentleman that she had repeated relationships with for money. One day when Bobby wasn't home, her daughter was there, and he came to see Bobby, but as a result, she left with him. Her daughter was found in Arkansas mutilated and murdered, and it turns out that this same John was the one that committed the crime. It goes deeper because Bobby, upon learning her daughter had been murdered, relapsed. On the day of her daughter's funeral, she didn't go because she was getting high. That level of unforgiveness of herself had repeated its cycle in her life over and over again. Even talking about it now, I can remember the day when she disclosed that to me. We ended up in the middle of my office floor with her head on my shoulder and her weeping just from a place that it seemed that it may have happened the day before. It was so present in that moment, and it had been 12 years at the time of our encounter.

Being a woman in recovery and knowing that many of the steps that she took, much of the behavior that she displayed, I had very similar background, and I could only think in that moment having one son just really open for the grace of God. It didn't happen to me, but just the moment of helplessness that I felt in that moment, I knew that prayer was the only answer. I know that unforgiveness can fester to the point of it rotting your heart. It can be the barrier to recovery. It can hold you in a space that immobilizes you from moving forward in every area in your life.

Some things will only come from on high. In that situation, having knowledge of the last night of Bobby's life and her mother being able to tell me that she said to her, I'm tired of going back to the crime scene, she understood the power that it had over her life, and she wanted to be with Jesus. What Bobby taught me about it was that she was the evidence of what I knew, unforgiveness, to see how she could get to a point where she had successful housing, that her son is doing well, that she's employed, that she's drug-free. There would be a moment that her guilt and her shame and her unforgiveness of the perpetrator herself and her daughter would strip her of every ounce of what society deems as success. She just simply would be in that place to say, How could I have happiness when this is a part of my history? We prayed. We talked quite often about having to forgive and understanding that most of the time when she went back to that crime scene of unforgiveness and all that has happened, her fingerprints were the only ones that were there.

She would be the one that would have to suffer the consequences of that over and over again unless she was able to have a relationship with God, that she could give that to Him and trust Him that He does forgive her. Bobby's story has impacted me as a therapist, as a mother, as a human being, and really being able to understand the power of unforgiveness and that unless it's addressed, unless it's taken care of, unless it's appropriately treated, that the long-range impact of it can permeate through your family, through your relationships, through every area of your life. It has allowed me as a clinician to really understand the importance of time, the importance of being present, and the importance of being skilled and being able to support and help someone that is suffering from unforgiveness in such a major way, understanding that it is a responsibility as a clinician to make sure that I'm healthy enough to be able to stand in that place and hold a space for someone that is addressing unforgiveness and being able to give them the word that God is able, that He forgives them. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support, and we'd love to hear from you. Email us at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org. Call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at P.O.

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